Focus News, Bulgaria
May 19 2007

Armenian PM’s party gets nearly half of seats in parliament

19 May 2007 | 20:45 | FOCUS News Agency

Yerevan. The party of Armenia’s prime minister won 64 seats in
parliamentary elections, two seats short of an outright majority,
according to a final tally released Saturday by the Central Elections
Commission, AP reported. The results of the May 12 national elections
leaves the Republican Party of premier Serge Sarkisian in a
distinctly stronger position than in the previous parliament, where
it held only 39 of the 131 seats. The new Prosperous Armenia party
got the second highest number of seats at 24. The party is seen by
many as having been created at the behest of President Robert
Kocharian as a nominal counterbalance to the Republican Party. The
Dashnak-Tsutsyun party, which was in the previous parliament’s
majority coalition, won 16 seats and former coalition partner Orinats
Yerkir got nine seats. The remainder went to a scattering of smaller
parties and independent candidates. Opposition parties have
complained of fraud in the election, but international observers in
general commended the vote as improving Armenia’s conformance with
democratic norms.